BREAKING NEWS: ILLINOIS HAS A NEW BASKETBALL COACH

Although it hasn’t been made official by the University of Illinois yet, multiple credible sources say that Ohio University Head Basketball Coach John Groce will become the new Head Coach of the Fighting Illini basketball program. This comes on the heels of the aftermath of two highly sought after coaches {VCU’s Shaka Smart and Butler’s Brad Stevens} turning down Illinois contract offers.

Groce has been the Head Coach at Ohio since 2004. Before that he was an assistant at Taylor High School {Not sure what state}, North Carolina State, Butler {Before the Brad Stevens era}, and Ohio State. As the Bobcats head coach he took the team to 3 postseason appearances, 2 Mid American Conference tournament championships, and took the mighty North Carolina Tar Heels to the brink of elimination just last week.

The University of Illinois will hold a press conference t0morrow to make the official announcement and introduce John Groce as the new head coach. Groce will replace Bruce Weber who coached the Illini for the previous 9 seasons. Weber had initial success during his first couple of seasons in Urbana, but he did so with Bill Self’s recruits.

But once Self’s recruits were gone, the Illini program fell from glory. John Groce will be getting a contract reportedly worth $2.5 million per season. My only concern is weather or not he can recruit. One of the problems Bruce Weber had was being able to recruit here in the Chicagoland area.